Massachusetts: Government/Business/ Labor Oversight
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MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK HAS ATTORNEY GENERAL Martha Coakley DEFENDING ACTIONS BY THE DISGUSTING DESPICABLE AGENCY(DCF) DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES....AGAINST THOSE NSEEKING ACTION TO PROTECT THE MOST VULNERABLE CHILDREN.....A STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL AGAIN COVERING UP AND ATTEMPTING TO PROTECT GOVERNMENT WRONGDOERS IS A MORAL OUTRAGE.

We have called for years on deaf ears the need for an Office of Independent Counsel.

The reason is the Attorney General is the lawyer for State Agencies and potential wrongdoers. This is a case in point.

The Attorney General deciding to defend the disgusting actions of the management of this Agency is despicable and unconscionable.

This is not the first time the Attorney General Office has conducted itself in this manner. There are instances also under Republican Administrations.

Let the Patrick Administration lawyers and the Department of Children and Families defend it selves.

The Attorney General should be showing Concern, Care, and Compassion for the Children and taxpayers by joining in supporting litigation, prosecution if deemed appropriate, and rooting out all inefficiency, mismanagement, waste, fraud, and abuse.

(Note: this Boston Herald News Article outlines the actions by the Governor and Attorney General)

The federal judge who handed the state’s embattled child welfare system a victory in a closely watched lawsuit last year set the bar too high for the plaintiffs to meet and either “ignored or misinterpreted” the law, a New York advocacy group charged in a sharply worded appeal of the decision.

Children’s Rights, which unsuccessfully sued state officials in a class action suit first brought in 2010, blasted U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young’s ruling, writing in a massive, 263-page appeal that it should be reversed.

Young’s so-called “two-pronged” approach — in that the group needed to prove the Department of Children and Families’ failures not only veered substantially from accepted practice but “shocks the conscience” — was unnecessarily high, Children’s Rights said.

It also argued that the deference he showed to state lawmakers to better fund the agency, and thus correct its ongoing problems, could set a dangerous precedent.
“Constitutional and statutory violations are rampant in DCF foster care,” Children’s Rights attorneys wrote in the appeal, filed late yesterday. “If this Court were to accept the district court’s view that federal judges must yield to executive and legislative prerogatives when such priorities are inconsistent with the state’s constitutional obligations to the state’s most helpless citizens, the consequences would be far-reaching.”

Furthermore, the group wrote, by putting the responsibility on lawmakers to fund DCF appropriately, “it likewise excused the abject failure by DCF.”
“Vulnerable children who are wholly dependent on the state for their safety and well-being, were erroneously held to a standard of proof no less burdensome than the standard to be met by an incarcerated felon,” the appeal states.

Children’s Rights had accused Bay State officials of failing to protect children under their care from abuse, allowing kids to flounder in the foster care system and doling out too many psychotropic drugs. It has successfully sued more than a dozen other states, and had gone to trial only once before in this type of case, winning against Washington, D.C., officials more than two decades ago.

Young had ripped DCF in his 84-page ruling released in November, concluding it failed to “not only to comport with national standards of care and state and federal requirements but also to comply with its own internal policies.”

But he said the plaintiffs, represented by Children’s Rights, had embarked on a “virtually unscalable peak” to win their suit.

“This is not a case about statistics but about children — our children — and this much is clear: The flaws noted herein are more about budgetary shortfalls than management myopia. We are all complicit in this financial failure,” Young wrote in November. He noted he wasn’t going to substitute his judgment “for that of duly elected Massachusetts lawmakers, who properly are endowed with the power to direct the reserves of the commonwealth’s coffers to whatever issue of public import they see fit.”

State officials have said that DCF’s budget had been cut by roughly $100 million between fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2012.

But Children’s Rights argues in its appeal it was wrong for Young to treat “fiscal constraints as a defense” and that he did so without “any valid legal basis.”
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, which is defending the state in the suit, will have 30 days to respond.

The situation has thrown the Democrat into an awkward position of balancing the actions of her office and her own calls for reforms at DCF as a leading gubernatorial candidate. Coakley has repeatedly said she feels there is no conflict.

The ruling likely saved the state from a costly court-mandated reform plan and the possibility of shelling out millions more in attorney fees. Last year, a judge ordered Oklahoma officials to launch a $100 million-a-year initiative to fix their system — on top of $6 million in legal costs for Children’s Rights — after the group successfully sued that state.

BOSTON HERALD LEADS THE MEDIA AND CONTINUES TO RIGHTLY ATTACK THE FAILURES OF GOVERNOR PATRICK, PRESIDENT ONBAMA AND DETAIL THE FLAWS OF PROSPECTIVE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE'S FOR GOVERNOR. YET, NOT LOOKING AT THE FAILURES OF ABOUT TO BE CORONATED BY THE PARTY MACHINE RETREAD REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR NOMINEE CHARLIE BAKER!

Ok....The Deval Patrick tenure as Governor has been a failure and the Barack Obama Affordable Care Act was poorly planned and sadly implemented. However, why is the media not focusing on the Charlie Baker stint in government and disasters as Assistant Secretary Human Services, then Secretary of Human services, and his anti Consumer role at the financially bailed out Harvard Pilgrim HMO.

You in the media should be informing and warning all Massachusetts Republicans about Charlie Baker disastrous leadership in government and as a self serving failed million dollar administrator at Harvard Pilgrim before that party makes a mistake and coronate him to be their losing candidate again for Governor.

The Republican Party must wake up fast. Baker is the worse candidate whose record in government and business was a moral and fiscal failure.

His leadership as Human Services czar literally dismantled the destruction of the state delivery system without concern, care, or compassion for those in need or taxpayers.

His record as chief head of Massachusetts purse strings was riddled with inefficiency, waste, and abuse such as the BIG DIG, the Saltonstall Contamination Exposure of the public and workers,and so much more.

What a field day respectable journalists will have at looking at the Baker archives and record!

When Charlie Baker is nominated by the Republican Party, the Democratic Party will have an easy effort to embarrass and turn voters off. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is holding back on exposing Baker who is the easiest opponent to defeat in November-no matter the Democratic Nominee.

Former Massachusetts Republican and Democratic Governors Michael Dukakis and Bill Weld along with their Secretaries of Human Services, Phillip Johnston, David Forsberg and especially Charles Baker, Jr. are to blame for the failed system we have today at the Department of Children and Families along with the SEIU Social Workers Union Bosses who failed to demand adequate support and resources for their dues paying members struggling to do their job protecting vulnerable children in need.

For years the Administrative Reign of Terror goes on not providing Foster Care Children the compassion, Care, and Concern needed by both Democratic and Republican Administrations through almost any intense oversight and accountability of taxpayer dollars.

We can trace the carnage back to the Dukakis Administration and his failed Democratic Party Profiteer Human Services guru Secretary Phillip Johnston.

This continued to an art form by the Weld Administration that brought these failures to an art form by failed Human Services Secretary David Forsberg and later the worst by Charles Baker, Jr. Subsequent Governors not solving the crisis during their short tenures continued the failures. Deval Patrick is the latest edition of Governors and the recipient of a public, media, and missing in action Legislature finally waking up and maybe taking action?

Baker plied his failed ideas and polices as the Human Services Czar and later as Chief Budget Administrator of purse strings give away of taxpayer dollars to contractors, providers, and vendors. Baker implemented the system of fewer accountants and auditor watchdogs to insure monies allotted are well spent and services to those in need were provided.

The SEIU Social Worker Union Bosses have failed their dues paying Social Workers struggling to protect vulnerable children with improper advocacy, tools, and resources. The union has been too silent on private contractors and providers getting resources and contracts they trying to organize for more dues as their own members were getting less to do their work on behalf of affected children and taxpayers.

Their legacies of waste, fraud, and, abuse policies of no bid unmonitored contracts continues through subsequent Administrations reaching to this disgusting height of the Patrick Administration.

I remember the constant pleas for years by the Legislative Foster Caucus led by former foster child legislator Marie J. Parente, who sounded alarm after alarm year after year attempting to protect the vulnerable and often discarded children under the last available protection of the state.

Parente worked tirelessly for the victimized children despite her unanswered pleas to the media, public, and other legislators. She along with other former foster care legislators Gloria, Fox, and Stan Rosenberg advocated as abuse after abuse and mismanagement was reported to changing temporary administrations.

Those who have sounded these alarms are always overshadowed by the well heeled so called improperly named Child Care industry and politically connected not insuring accountability and oversight.

The Foster Care System is an absolute failure where dysfunctional contractors, individuals are getting tax dollars. The monies have been wasted or pirated by those taking needed dollars for quality services not provided with little oversight or accountability.

Massachusetts Government does not have a direct care safety net for the children in need and is totally dependent on outside exploitation by the Human Serves Industrial Establishment looking for unmonitored tax dollars.

John Gatti Jr

This blog is for assistance to all Massachuestts citizens dedicated to Government, Businesss, and Labor Accountabiity and Oversight.

John Gatti Jr is architect of the Masschusetts Public employee whistleblower Law. Gatti writes about waste, fraud, and abuse. He assists all conscientious citizens, public and private sector employees in revealing Waste,Fraud, and Abuses.

Gatti can be reached at jgattijr@gmail.com to correspond privately at no charge for those persons or organizations in need of assistance.

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